Painful Steps of Progress from Crisis Planning to Contingency Planning: Changes for Disaster Preparedness in Turkey

Excessive losses in natural disasters in Turkey are, to a large extent, a consequence of omissions and deficiencies in the structuring of ‘disasters’ and ‘development’ laws, as well as negligent land‐use practices and avoidance of control in building processes. Two extreme forms of legal and organizational structures in disasters policy could be formulated as the ‘fatalist’ and ‘self‐reliance‘ models. Their contrasts can be investigated in terms of (a) the use of information concerning natural phenomena in formal planning procedures; (b) pre‐ or post‐disaster emphasis in preparations; (c) the political or technical basis of decisions; (d) the extraordinary or routine nature of responses; (e) the general or specialized nature of financial sources used; (f) and their compatibility with the order of priorities in risk management. An evaluation of the conventional policy in Turkey clarifies a position closer to the ‘fatalist’ model and indicates the lines of action for improvements. However, after the 1999 earthquakes, the conventional approach in disaster policy has been restructured. With the newly introduced ‘Obligatory Building Insurance’, ‘Building Control’, and ‘Professional Proficiency’ systems, greater emphasis is now given to mitigation efforts, and the introduction of contingency planning practices is more likely to happen.